Jamie stepped out into the hallway, his face green as a witch.
“Jamie?” Pru walked toward him. She placed a hand on his elbow. They’d become close. He was now like a brother to her. “You look peaky. Is everything…?”
“Laurel.” He took her hand, panic in his eyes. “Fecking hell. I don’t know what to do. There’s someone here to see you. Mrs. Spencer…”
“Mrs. Spencer’s here?”
Pru’s face brightened.
“Where is the old gal? I hope Tom’s taking good care of her. Is he here too?”
Pru tried to step around the corner. Jamie yanked her back.
“Cor blimey. She warned us! She did!”
Pru gently pushed Jamie out of her way, and then walked into the living room where she saw a figure sitting on the couch. A figure that was decidedly not Mrs. Spencer or Tom. Lord, what Pru would’ve given to see Tom’s menacing glower right then, the hammer in his hand.
“Who are you?” Pru said, though she knew the answer already. “Who are you? Why are you here?”
Every organ inside her body plunged to the floor, Pru would later describe. Here was a ghost. An apparition. Death at her doorstep.
Run! Pru’s mind told her, though her feet refused to move. Run! Leave! Get out!
The person before her should’ve been a welcome sight, a miracle, a reason to celebrate. But in fact there sat the worst possible news—for Pru, and especially for a bloke once known as Win.
Eighty
?LE SAINT-LOUIS
PARIS
APRIL 1973
“Laurel Innamorati. You are a tough one to track down.”
The man stood. It was not so easy as he had but one leg.
“Here you are though,” he said. “At last. I swore that no matter what, I’d go to the ends of the earth to find you and Paris is close enough. Paris by way of a shit shack in the English countryside. What the hell is up with that place?”
Pru would later say that at that moment she genuinely thought she was back at Berkeley. Maybe she was with Petal, finally agreeing to partake in her roommate’s penchant for acid. What felt like a year of grief and turmoil was instead one wretched, upside-down, and backward trip. It made more sense than accepting what she saw as true.
“No,” Pru said, and tried to shake away the vision. “You’re not real. This isn’t real.”
I tried to reach for her but she swatted me away. Tears filled her eyes.
“You should probably scram,” the one-legged man said to Jamie and me. “She’s obviously in shock. Leave her be. Give her time to adjust.”
“Sorry, mate, I’m not going anywhere,” I said.
“Me neither,” Jamie agreed with a nod and a tight-lipped look of solidarity.
“Fine. Have it your way. We can make it a party. Laurel?”
The man tried to walk toward her but, thanks to his lack of balance, fell onto the couch with a thud.
“Laurel?” he said again.
The stranger’s eyes latched onto Pru’s drawn and waxen face. He scowled at and into her, as if this might get her talking. Pru did open her mouth for a second, but then closed it back up again.
“Well, this has been a hell of an adventure,” the man said. “Mom told me you were at some estate in England. Then I showed up and it’s a friggin’ hovel. I rang the goddamned doorbell and some naked geezer started shooting at me. As if I haven’t had my fill of that.”
Pru made an odd smacking sound, like a puppet without a voice.
“The bitch was paranoid as hell,” he went on. “Wouldn’t tell me where you were. Luckily she had some family members willing to be a little more honest.” He shook his head, then laughed sourly. “I’ve seen some crazy shit in the past year, but this might take the cake.”
Pru whimpered but I was the only one to hear.
“So old chum,” I said, working up the mettle, trying to sound at ease. My stomach, though, was roiling like a storm. “You’re sitting in my living room but I don’t recall you making a proper introduction.”
“Win…” Jamie said plaintively, a warning.
“I’m Charlie,” the man replied, giving his name a kick. “Charles Edgar Haley, Junior. Laurel’s fiancé.”
He didn’t need to add the fiancé part. My heart had already smashed into a trillion pieces.
This man, this skinny, tan-necked, buzz-headed, one-legged foreigner was Pru’s fiancé. The one who was dead.
“You told me he’d been killed,” I said to her, eyes blazing.
Pru looked back, face as startled as if I’d struck her, which is what she said it felt like. I called her a liar, but I didn’t care about the lie. One lie or a thousand, if this man disappeared all would’ve been forgiven.
“He was killed,” she sputtered. “That’s what … no. Everyone go away.” She grabbed at the sides of her head. “This is not true. None of you are real.”
“Oh sweet Laurel.” Charlie lunged forward and grabbed her arm. “My poor girl.”